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Partap S. Khalsa, D.C., Ph.D.

Director, Division of Extramural Activities

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Partap S. Khalsa, D.C., Ph.D., D.A.B.C.O., is NCCIH’s Director of the Division of Extramural Activities (DEA). Dr. Khalsa plans, leads, and directs the activities of scientists and technical support personnel within DEA to ensure quality, objectivity, and accountability in the grants and contracts, peer review, and committee management processes. He also directs and coordinates activities to evaluate the overall performance of the Center’s grant review processes and allocation of resources. He is the Executive Secretary of the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health, which provides second-level peer review of all grants assigned to NCCIH and provides input and feedback to the Center on all programs, initiatives, and concepts.

Previously at NCCIH, Dr. Khalsa served as Deputy Director of the Division of Extramural Research (DER). He began his career at NIH in 2006 as a program director in DER, in which he administered the Center’s research portfolio related to manual therapies including massage, soft tissue therapies, movement therapies, joint and spinal mobilization, and spinal manipulation. The portfolio spanned research from mechanisms to translational tools and clinical trials and the research primarily focused on musculoskeletal pain. During his time at NCCIH, Dr. Khalsa also served as the NIH co-chair of the Task Force on Chronic Low-Back Pain and he administered NCCIH’s Centers of Excellence program in complementary and integrative therapies.

Dr. Khalsa received a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from the Southern California University of Health Sciences’ Los Angeles College of Chiropractic. After practicing privately for a decade, he earned his M.S. in biomedical engineering from Boston University and a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Following postdoctoral training in neurophysiology at Yale University, Dr. Khalsa served as assistant professor, tenured associate professor, and vice chairman of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University (SUNY).